by Gore Vidal
“Eliza Bowen?” The elegant head shook with disdain. “Never could bear that tart! Always being kept by Frenchmen. I don’t know if that was her taste or theirs. She lived with a sea captain for a long time in William Street and tried to pretend she didn’t know ladies like me existed, but of course we knew all about her. Our sorority is not that large, you know, or at least it wasn’t thirty years ago when all the world was young. But Liza’s done well, they tell me. She wanted money and a place in society. She got the money. I don’t think the other is possible. Not in New York, thank God. There are some things money cannot buy.”
I steered her back to Colonel Burr. But she had not known him for many years. “I never leave Thomas Street and he never comes here. I think I saw him once at the theatre, after he came back from Europe, that must’ve been in twelve or thirteen. But maybe it was someone else. He was a hero of mine. Even though I am still a Federalist at heart.”
“Didn’t you come from Kinderhook originally?”
Mrs. Townsend looked more than usually startled. “Did I tell you that?” But she was not interested in my reply; she forgave herself the indiscretion. “No, Claverack. Not too far away.”
“You must have known the Van Buren family.”
Obviously she wanted to find some sequential link but refused to humble herself by asking a question. She is a woman of answers only. “I was once or twice in their tavern. But I don’t remember the son. I suspect he was already in New York. Then when I was seventeen I came to the city, too, eager to take my place in Sodom and Gomorrah. Like Milton’s Satan, I would rather reign in Thomas Street than serve in Claverack.”
“Did you ever hear that Colonel Burr was the father of Martin Van Buren?”
“One hears everything. But I tend to believe nothing. I do know that Colonel Burr has at least one son born beneath the rose, as they say, a silversmith, who lives in the Bowery. Aaron Columbus Burr he is called. His mother was French and he was conceived while the Colonel was in Paris. A charming youth. He came here once as a customer—and remained to take a dent out of a silver tray that I had, uncharitably, flung at the head of a certain poxy girl. If I were younger and so inclined, I might have served Monsieur Columbus Burr myself for he is a beautiful young man, or was. I haven’t seen him in years either.”
MUFFLED CRIES from upstairs.
A door slams loudly.
A man coughs.
Mrs. Townsend picks up Pilgrim’s Progress. “Go to Miss Jewett,” she commands.
Miss Jewett stands in front of an open window; behind her I can see by moonlight the bedraggled back yard whose ricketty fence keeps in Mrs. Townsend’s cow. I am in the room I like best. In fact, it was in this room that I first enjoyed Mrs. Townsend’s hospitality.
Helen Jewett shakes hands. She does not seem nervous, only grave …
I AM IN THE OFFICE making notes; it is the next morning and I am obliged to record that I have never been so well pleased as with this girl. Gray eyes, perfect skin, clean body—none of that drenching in cheap perfume that makes love-making with so many girls seem like a wrestling match in a chemist’s shop.
We talked for some time. “I should like to be a dress-maker.” She did not have a country accent. “But, you see, there was no place in New Haven. Two Frenchwomen do everything, and very jealous they are of anybody else. So I came here and met a girl who knew Mrs. Townsend, and here I am.” She smiled; she is very straightforward.
“In a few years I should have enough money saved to open a shop. You don’t need much, you know. And Mrs. Townsend says I can dress her and all the girls here.”
I did not make the obvious remark that the girls seldom wear more than a shift (they are not often let out of the house) while Rosanna Townsend’s only costume is a rusty, green-black bombasine shroud.
“Did you enjoy that?” The girl seemed really curious to know.
“Yes, very much.”
“I’m glad.”
“Were you a virgin when you came here?”
She smiled again, shook her head. “No. But I never kept company with a stranger, like this.”
“Do you like it?”
“Well, I don’t exactly know.” Then laughed. “You look sort of like one of those cherubs in the hymnal.” This so aroused me that I was ready to begin all over again but the Negress’s heavy tread outside the door signified that my time was up. I said I would see her soon again. Will I? Yes.
As I left the room, started toward the stairs, I heard the sound of gagging. A door was flung open and there was Leggett, both hands over his mouth; behind him, on the bed, a startled girl without clothes.
Outraged, the maid slammed shut the door.
Leggett gave one last thunderous gasping cough, wiped his lips with the back of his hand, opened his eyes, saw me and said, “Well, that was wasted money. I nearly died—in the non-Elizabethan sense. It’s the dust here. I tell Rosanna, ‘I’d rather have the clap ten times than choke on the dust from your counterpanes’!”
Shakily, he took my arm and we went downstairs. The doors to the parlour were shut. Mrs. Townsend was at home only to John Bunyan.
Leggett and I went out into the warm night—morning—and made our way to the Five Points, to the tavern at Cross Street.
As we entered two pigs were being chased across the sawdust floor by the bar-tender, to the delight of the clientele.
Leggett was recognised immediately. The workies adore him as much as the rich detest him. Great pats on the shoulder caused him to stagger this way and that as we made our way to a table at the back.
Then Leggett ordered beer for two, pulled proofs from his pocket, began to correct an editorial, all the while quizzing me about the new girl from Connecticut. I told him little, not wanting him to have her. He nodded, coughed, read and marked proof—to my irritation.
“Can you really read and talk at the same time?”
“Of course.” But he put away the proofs when beer arrived.
“On the house, Mr. Leggett!” An Irish face smiled down upon us. The lower orders of New York may not actually read Leggett’s fiery editorials—or anything else—but the word has spread among them that he is a scourge to their employers. And of course any man capable of thrashing (as he did recently) a libellous editor is a true hero.
“What news of Colonel Burr?”
I told Leggett of my conversation with Madame, adding, “I’m collecting material.” Actually I have done no more than record my few findings in this book, with altogether too many digressions of a personal nature. Yet like a criminal’s deposition, one thing does lead to another. At first the testimony is garrulous, self-serving, repetitive; then, gradually, themes emerge, lies become evident, truths isolated. I believe that if I put down everything I know of Colonel Burr, I ought, at the end, to be able to make that riddling Sphinx rise and show me whether it be man or woman, brute or human, or some hybrid undreamed-of lying athwart my days. Who is Aaron Burr, and—again—what is he to me?
“You know my interest, Charlie. The Van Buren connection.”
“I can hardly ask the Colonel directly …”
“Obviously not. But there are people who might know.”
“Matthew Davis?”
Leggett made a face. “He would know but I doubt if he’d tell. The quintessential Tammany man, secretly at work for Henry Clay. Well, all that I can say is: if it’s between Clay and Van Buren …”
Elections fascinate Leggett. He cannot exist unless he is plunged deep in some cause or quarrel. It actually matters to him that there are black slaves in the south and exploited working-men in the city. I envy him. He is never bored; lives on his nerves, hurling inky thunderbolts at those in power; all fire and aggression.
I am the opposite; drawn to the past, to what is secret; and prone to those dreams of dominion that make it possible for the dreamer to subvert with the greatest of ease class, nation, honour. Bonaparte fascinates me. So does Burr. To Leggett they are blackguards, which no doubt they are. Even
so, I prefer either to any dozen Andrew Jacksons.
Perhaps it is simply a liking for easy games of chance that draws so many Americans to politics of the usual sort. Yet affecting to love democracy, every last one of them does his best to make sufficient money in order to exclude himself from the common round. I suppose that kind of blindness to motive is normal. At best, however, I prefer the man like Burr who, failing to gain power in the conventional way, breaks up the game—or tries to—seizes the crown—or tries to—and in the failing …
But what do I really know of Aaron Burr? Or of myself? I am only scribbling idly, trying to put myself in his skin as I sit now at my desk in Reade Street, waiting for him and the others to come to work on a hot August morning. No breeze.
I tried just now to open the chest beneath the round table but it is locked.
What else did Leggett and I talk about?
“If Matthew Davis is unsatisfactory, I shall try Sam Swartwout.”
Leggett was not enthusiastic. “They have every reason to hide the connection and no incentive to reveal it. Sam dislikes Van Buren but not enough to betray Burr, much less the President. Of course he would know a good deal about Burr’s adventures out west.”
It was time to go. As we left the bar, we saw two men fighting at the wooden pump. One was short and stocky: he was pummelling a tall gangling creature with loose flapping arms.
“ ‘Put out the light,’ ” bellowed the youth and we recognised the most splendid voice in our city: Edwin Forrest was giving a much deserved beating to William de la Touche Clancey, the Tory sodomite.
“And then put out the light!” Forrest’s voice echoed through the Five Points like a bronze trumpet on the day of judgement. He is the world’s greatest Othello; and in most classic roles, better than any English actor (despite Mrs. Trollope’s ignorant abuse of him). Assuming Forrest is not ruined by drink or got up for murder, he will be the best actor in the world. He is only twenty-seven.
Leggett threw himself upon the pair, shoved Forrest against the tavern wall, gave the swooning Clancey a kick that sent him half-way to Anthony Street. “For God’s sake, Ned,” said Leggett, “this is no Desdemona!”
“Very like,” muttered Forrest ominously, holding himself erect with some difficulty, the handsome young bull’s face red from whiskey.
Safe at the opposite corner, Clancey was himself again—coolly disdainful despite dirt-smeared face, torn shirt. “Get that butcher boy to bed, Leggett!” Clancey’s voice is like that of a furious goose, all honks and hisses.
“Not your bed!” thundered Edwin Forrest, holding on to Leggett’s arm. The Bowery b’hoys were delighted by these insults. Delighted, too, to observe a pair of their favourites in league against the natural enemy, for Clancey detests our democracy, finds even the Whigs radical, the Adams family vulgar, Daniel Webster a sans-culotte. He fills the pages of his magazine America with libellous comments on all things American. Despite a rich wife and five children, he is a compulsive sodomite, forever preying on country boys new to the city.
Leggett tidied up his friend; asked what the quarrel was about. But Forrest only smiled (I do think him better than anyone I have ever seen on the stage. I often practise in front of the mirror the last scene from his Spartacus), and putting an arm around Leggett’s shoulder, allowed himself to be led away.
“ ‘You know,’ ” he whispered Iago’s line, “ ‘what you know.’ ” I shuddered at that thrilling voice. Shudder now as I record the scene (like Leggett I once thought of becoming an actor). I suppose Leggett’s unfulfilled ambition explains his friendship with Forrest—the actor lives out a life the writer will never know.
I turn now to the manuscript Colonel Burr gave me.
ACROSS THE TOP of the first page:
“An account of Lieutenant-Colonel Aaron Burr’s Military Service at the Time of the Glorious Revolution.” The word “Glorious” has been inserted in the narrow space between “the” and “Revolution.”
“On the strength not only of this Record but also of the enclosed Accounts of those Witnesses who still survive, Lieutenant-Colonel Aaron Burr most respectfully proposes himself to the Congress, in accordance with recent legislation (documents enclosed), as one to whom Recompense is now due for Expenses incurred during the just war against British Tyranny. At New York City, January 1, 1825.”
I search for enclosures. There are none.
Then, scribbled in the margin: “Charlie—a petition to Congress can never be entirely candid. When I was bedridden three years ago, I re-read this tale of heroism and decided that the actual story of those days ought to be told. The truth cannot hurt us, as they say. Most incorrectly, of course: it is the truth that blasts us like a thunderbolt from the God my grandfather regularly communed with. Incidentally, it has always been my view that if God exists He is probably not half so unpleasant as He has been made out to be. But then, as usual, mine is a minority opinion.
“Amuse yourself with this telling of old things. Certainly it amused me to set it all down, a task begun when I was in the Senate and had, for a brief period, the run of our military archives.”
I COPY OUT the whole text, incorporating foot-notes and asides in the text proper.
Cambridge, Quebec
I WAS NINETEEN and a student at Tapping Reeve’s law school in Litchfield, Connecticut, on the day that American colonists and British soldiers met for the first time in battle at Lexington. One day later (April 20, 1775) “victory” bells were ringing in Litchfield. The long-awaited battle for American independence had begun, and I was ready for it.
Actually, I was ready only for adventure. Unlike Hamilton, I had taken no part in the various debates that precipitated the revolution, as people inaccurately term the political separation of the American colonies from the British crown. Brought up in a family of sermonizers, I have never responded to any political rhetoric, save, on rare occasions, my own.
Until the actual fighting began, my days were devoted entirely to law and to one Dolly Quincy of Fairfield. Although Dolly was the fiancée of John Hancock, the Massachusetts delegate to the Continental Congress, she was a good friend to me, and played with tact the Older Woman who is obliged to hold—nearly at arm’s length—an impetuous boy-admirer.
Dolly and I were part of a small crowd that stood outside the Litchfield tavern and listened to a cutler who had just escaped from British-held Boston. He claimed to have been at Lexington. I am sure he gave us many bloody details but I no longer recall a word he said. I do remember walking across the muddy common, a silent Dolly holding tight my arm. I remember daffodils in bloom—a goose with goslings gliding across the still cold water of a pond.
“John will be pleased.” Dolly picked flowers. “He has wanted a war from the beginning. I think he’s mad.”
“Are you a Tory?” I teased her. But she was serious; not at all responsive to the war fever. “I fear what is going to happen to all of us.” I still remember the exact inflection of her voice, and the look in her handsome, if slightly crossed eyes. So the long war began; with bells ringing, and bright daffodils.
In July, through the offices of a friend (Dolly), I received a letter from John Hancock, now president of the Continental Congress, recommending my friend Matthias Ogden and me to the attention of the recently appointed commanding general of the Continental Army, George Washington of Virginia.
I ought to mention that Dolly was appalled when news came to us that Washington had been chosen. “John was supposed to command the army. I don’t understand it.”
But then, at the time, no one understood how Washington and his Virginia confederates had managed to wrest for themselves the leadership of what was essentially a New England army. Working together in perfect concert and displaying at all times the most exquisite loyalty to one another, the Virginians pushed to one side not only John Hancock but such talented commanders as Gates and Lee and Artemas Ward. As a matter of course, John Adams would betray his fellow New Englander John Hancock. Lacking pe
rsonal loyalty to one another as well as any true policy, the New Englanders and the New Yorkers from the beginning gave over to the Virginia junto the American republic—and with relish the junto proceeded to rule us for the better part of a half-century.
In July, a week after General Washington took command, Matt Ogden and I arrived at Cambridge to find the town full of officers and would-be officers.
The letter from John Hancock was duly delivered to Adjutant-General Gates who was amiable but harassed. He promised me an appointment with General Washington but I never did speak to the General in the two months I spent at Cambridge. Matt Ogden, on the other hand, was promptly commissioned.
I was forced to spend nights in the taverns in order to meet officers; days in the camp to get to know a few of the 17,000 would-be soldiers who were encamped beside the Charles River. Particularly striking were the frontiersmen from the forests of what was then the west. They wore fringed hunting jackets and lived like wild beasts in the open. Since they did not bother to dig “necessaries,” wherever they were the stench was overwhelming.
For those who preferred a roof over their head, the range of impromptu dwellings was wide. A few officers were able to afford proper tents, even marquees like the British. Others were forced to make themselves houses of sailcloth or of boards tacked together at random, or of turf. The total effect was chaos, like something thrown up in the wake of a disaster on the order of the Lisbon earthquake, and like the survivors of a calamity a good many took delight in reverting to barbarism—to drunkenness, thieving, fighting.
I moved from company to company, learning what I could. One thing was plain. Certain officers had the knack of gaining obedience with no effort while others—the majority—were forced to shout and threaten, often to no avail.
Toward the end of July, I was watching a ragged company of New Yorkers at drill when General Washington approached, astride a black horse. It was my first glimpse of him close-to. He wore the recently designed blue and buff uniform of the army; across his chest a pale blue ribband signified that he was commanding general (lesser generals wore purple ribbands, staff officers green ribbands, and so on).